U.S. and Israel allegedly launch cyberoffensive at Iran

Iran reported a spree of new cyberattacks Tuesday, saying foreign enemy hackers tried in recent months to disrupt computer systems at a power plant and other industries in a strategically important southern coastal province as well as a Culture Ministry information centre.

Accounts of the attacks in the official media did not specify who was responsible, when they were carried out or how they were thwarted. But they strongly suggested that the attacks had originated in the United States and Israel, which have been engaged in a shadowy struggle of computer sabotage with Iran in a broader dispute over whether Iranâ€™s nuclear energy program is for peaceful or military use.

Iran has been on heightened alert against such sabotage since a computer worm known as Stuxnet was used to attack its uranium enrichment centrifuges more than two years ago, which U.S. intelligence officials believe caused many of the machines to spin out of control and self-destruct, slowing the Iranian programâ€™s progress.